I am looking for someone who can help with a small project. I would like a small circuit board that will activate a switch with a whistle or two claps. I know they sell kits that will do this, but I want to choose the sound that activates the switch. I think this could be accomplished with fairly simple circuits. I'm not looking for advice on how to do it, I am looking for someone to build it for me. If you are interested please let me know, and we can talk. Thanks

It would depend on how much but yes I would be willing to pay for time and materials. As long as the cost isn't too high.

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What would constitute a cost being too high? Keep in mind that engineering/development time is not cheap. It's unlikely that you would be looking at less than a couple thousand dollars and that's if you don't want something that is nicely packaged.

What are your reliability requirements? If you whistle and nothing happens, how bad is that? Is it okay if you occasionally have to whistle multiple times? Is it okay if it occasionally actives due to some sound that it thought was an acceptable whistle?

I have never seen one of these types of threads lead anywhere productive.

What do you consider too much for a complete, custom device, including PCB? $100, $500, $1000, $2000... ?

What avenues have you investigated for a commercially available product? What do you want the command to be? For example, a specific sequence of claps or a spoken word?

John

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Well, the kit to build a clap activated switch is about $15.00 and similar cost for a whistle activated switch. I kind of wanted to combine the two. I would build it myself, but I am disabled. I was hoping materials and labor would be small, because of this seemed to be fairly simple, at least I thought.

What would constitute a cost being too high? Keep in mind that engineering/development time is not cheap. It's unlikely that you would be looking at less than a couple thousand dollars and that's if you don't want something that is nicely packaged.

What are your reliability requirements? If you whistle and nothing happens, how bad is that? Is it okay if you occasionally have to whistle multiple times? Is it okay if it occasionally actives due to some sound that it thought was an acceptable whistle?

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This is just for a project, so reliability isn't an issue, but what I spend on it is, not looking to have something engineered, just put together.

Well, the kit to build a clap activated switch is about $15.00 and similar cost for a whistle activated switch. I kind of wanted to combine the two. I would build it myself, but I am disabled. I was hoping materials and labor would be small, because of this seemed to be fairly simple, at least I thought.

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The problem is NRE -- non-recurring engineering -- costs. If you are making 100,000 kits and it costs you $10,000 to design the product, then the design cost is only $0.10/unit and can almost be forgotten compared to the cost of the actual parts (the Bill of Materials) and the labor to assemble it. But in a one-off design, the NRE has to be covered by the single part that is actually made. It's the same for some of the materials -- the cost of a PCB has to include the NRE to lay out the board and for the fab house to prepare the masks. Just the fab costs for a basic board that includes a protective solder mask is probably going to be pushing $100 for the smallest boards.

This is just for a project, so reliability isn't an issue, but what I spend on it is, not looking to have something engineered, just put together.

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So are you going to provide the design for someone else to put together? If not, then someone is going to have to design it -- that's known as engineering. Doesn't mean that it's done by an engineer -- it can be done by a teenage kid that's just kinda interested in doing it for fun, but you can't just put something together unless someone has designed it first. Even if it is something simple enough that someone with the right background can throw it together on the fly based on their experience, they are still designing it in addition to putting it together.

Someone could build the thing for like 100$ for fun but you have another problem which is shipping cost that means if someone isn't from your state/country shipping could easily increase the cost by 30%.

So are you going to provide the design for someone else to put together? If not, then someone is going to have to design it -- that's known as engineering. Doesn't mean that it's done by an engineer -- it can be done by a teenage kid that's just kinda interested in doing it for fun, but you can't just put something together unless someone has designed it first. Even if it is something simple enough that someone with the right background can throw it together on the fly based on their experience, they are still designing it in addition to putting it together.

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I agree, but I think someone has already designed this, at least a clap and whistle activated switch, maybe not on one board, but it shouldn't be too hard to combine, even if its two separate boards in one enclosure. The kits and directions already exist.

I have never seen one of these types of threads lead anywhere productive.

What do you consider too much for a complete, custom device, including PCB? $100, $500, $1000, $2000... ?

What avenues have you investigated for a commercially available product? What do you want the command to be? For example, a specific sequence of claps or a spoken word?

John

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I too have tried numerous times to respond to these threads. They never go anywhere because people refuse to work for what it is worth to the people who propose the projects. What we do is viewed as nearly worthless by the vast majority of the general public. I'm in agreement with the others who say stop wasting our time with requests to work for free. Pay us or fahgeddaboudit.

I agree, but I think someone has already designed this, at least a clap and whistle activated switch, maybe not on one board, but it shouldn't be too hard to combine, even if its two separate boards in one enclosure. The kits and directions already exist.

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i think you are confused to assume that a clap-on-clap off would not respond to two whistles. And the whistle activated device would not respond to any screech or chalkboard scratch.

My advice, buy some type of solder kit assembly project and a clapper. That way, you have something to assemble and a clap-activated switch.

Kits available at jameco or tayda and many other places. Clapper at walgreens.